Articles by Herschel Smith

Dave Kopel:

The unnamed “experts” on whom Couric relies are apparently not expert at reading newspapers. Literally, a good guy with a gun is not the “only” way that armed criminals are stopped. But it is an important way, including in mass shootings. As I detailed in a 2015 study for the Cato Institute:

Over the last 25 years, there have been at least 10 cases in which armed persons have stopped incipient mass murder: a Shoney’s restaurant in Alabama (1991); Pearl High School in Mississippi (1997); a middle school dance in Edinboro, Pennsylvania (1998); Appalachian School of Law in Virginia (2002); Trolley Square Mall in Salt Lake City (2007); New Life Church in Colorado (2007); Players Bar and Grill in Nevada (2008); Sullivan Central High School in Tennessee (2010); Clackamas Mall in Oregon (2012; three days before Newtown); Mayan Palace Theater in San Antonio (2012; three days after Newtown); and Sister Marie Lenahan Wellness Center in Darby, Pennsylvania (2014).

Some of these cases are discussed in Eugene Volokh’s post “Do citizens (not police officers) with guns ever stop mass shootings?”

Now, Ronald K. Noble, former secretary-general of Interpol, is weighing in on the issue. During the first Clinton administration, from 1993 to 1996, Noble served as assistant secretary and then undersecretary for enforcement at the Treasury Department. This made him the direct supervisor of the main federal gun control agency, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. As such, he played a major role in the Clinton administration’s very aggressive gun control program.

[ … ]

In 2000, Noble was elected secretary-general of Interpol, the first non-European ever to hold the post. Noble went on to serve three terms as secretary-general, leaving in 2014. He now runs a global security consulting firm based in Dubai,  RKN Global DWC LLC.

As Noble explains, his 14 years of close involvement in global counterterrorism changed his perspective on gun control. This week, he has published a video about the 2013 mass shootings at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi. The video, “Armed Citizens Can Help Stop Terrorist Massacres Like Nairobi and Paris,” shows graphic footage of the attack and of the response of armed citizens. During the lengthy and well-planned attack, more than 60 innocent people were murdered. As Noble explains, the death count would have been hundreds more if not for the armed citizens who intervened. As Noble puts it, “This is not an American argument, nor a political argument. In these horrific situations, law-abiding armed citizens have helped protect others and literally saved lives, and the world should be made aware of this reality. . . . In the hands of law-abiding citizens, guns can and do save lives.”

See the rest of Kopel’s analysis where he explains his history with Noble, the fact that Noble still favors “a variety of non-prohibitory gun regulations” that Kopel does not, and so on.  This is a very interesting analysis from a scholar and from what I can tell genuinely good man.  I have followed Kopel for some time now, and briefly exchanged email with him.

As for Noble, we aren’t told what “non-prohibitory [gun] regulations” he favors, but regulations are by their very nature prohibitory, so I take Kopel at his word that he doesn’t favor such regulations (whatever they are), and that Noble does, and that Kopel is being gracious.  I would just as soon he have been forthright than gracious.  People like that have to be called on their equivocation.

And of course, most ordinary people don’t have to witness the results of large scale massacres in order to understand that it’s better to have a means of self defense than not.  One way to tell that the gun controllers are lying is that their gun grabbing never applies to law enforcement, even though law enforcement is usually less well trained than the ordinary gun owner who shoots once a week or twice a month.

You’ll know they’re serious when they propose gun confiscations for law enforcement, thus disarming everyone in the face of crime.  Don’t hold your breath.  What they really want is a monopoly of force, which is always what all statists want.  What they hate is your liberty.  Never relinquish it.

Via Uncle, another gun with a mind of its own.

AUSTIN (KXAN) — University of Texas Police officer, Cory Morrison, was injured Tuesday morning when a weapon accidentally fired while in his holster. The bullet went into and out of his right leg according to UTPD Chief David Carter. The accident happened in the parking lot of UTPD headquarters at 7:30 a.m. when Carter said Morrison was talking to two colleagues. Morrison was standing outside a patrol car while talking to the two men inside when the gun went off.

Morrison was taken to the hospital with serious, but non-life threatening injuries.

Officer Morrison has been placed on administrative leave with pay. At the press conference, Carter said he is doing well and is with his family. He has been with UTPD for the past year, a law enforcement officer for 14 years and in the military for seven.

The investigation will look into finding out what circumstances surrounded the weapon discharge. It is unknown if he was touching the weapon at the time it went off. The two officers Morrison was talking to witnessed the shooting from inside their patrol vehicle.

Police say unintentional discharges happen from time to time; either in training or cleaning of a weapon. However, any time there is an incident of this kind, the police department is obligated to look into whether it was a mechanical failure or human failure.

Okay, so let me help.  The officer put his booger hook on the bang switch and pulled it.  There.  Do I get to charge you consultant fees?

NBC News:

In his small Silicon Valley office, Salem Khan covered his face with his hands and sobbed deeply.

He was crying about his 24-year-old son, Jaffrey, a troubled young man who had struggled in school and in life. Khan long feared his child would one day do something terrible — and now he had.

He had joined ISIS.

With his wife and 18-year-old brother-in-law in tow, Jaffrey left behind the moneyed, manicured precincts of the Bay Area and offered his services to one of the most savage terrorist organizations in the world.

The father tried to suggest his son was impressionable, a lost soul, an easy mark for bloodthirsty fanatics selling the fantasy of an Islamic caliphate.

“He was gullible,” Salem Khan said. “You know the people looking to scam you out of money or something? They’re looking for people like him.”

Khan lives in a $2 million house and runs a medical marketing company in Palo Alto, in the shadow of elite Stanford University — 7,000 miles and a world away from where this story began, in southern Turkey.

That’s where, in March, we met a man who claimed to be an ISIS defector. He called himself Abu Mohammed and gave NBC News a thumb drive that he said he stole from an ISIS commander and smuggled out in a baby’s diaper.

Such cloak and dagger stuff.  But when viewed objectively, he didn’t join ISIS.  For him to have joined ISIS he would have had to fly to Syria, join up with criminals and Islamists within ISIS, be approved by the leadership of ISIS, and then fight in Syria, Iraq or Libya.  He is a criminal in America, not a member of ISIS, any more than I’m a member of Delta Force.

And there is a solution to such criminality in America.  First of all, close the borders, once and for all, painful or not.  Second, stop the practice of Islamists in America.  Japan does it, so can we.  Finally, carry guns of all sorts, all of the time.  Terror cannot become ensconced when terrorists are immediately shot.

In the U.K., they are worried about the police in light of Islamic terrorism.

Officers are not volunteering to carry guns because they fear being “hung out to dry” and treated like a suspect if they discharge their weapon, the federation claimed.

Its chairman, Steve White, warned Government plans to train another 1,500 firearms officers to deal with the terror threat looked doubtful.

The warning comes as a survey of 16,800 officers shows that while 40% fear they will be attacked at work, just half this number (20%) have or want personal firearms.

Pitiful Britain.  The cops are worried, but if you return the rightful liberty to the citizens, I’m willing to bet that they would carry weapons.  As it is, Britain is poorly equipped, poorly positioned, and poorly prepared for what’s coming its way.

Don’t be like Britain.

Texas Observer:

The arms race is escalating again. Despite historically low crime rates and an improving national economy, more and more Texans are arming themselves. Applications for gun licenses have surged in the last few months, bringing the total number of Texans with handgun permits to just under 1 million. In 1996, just 1 in 168 Texans had a concealed handgun license, according to the Dallas Morning News. In 2015, about 1 in 30 did. And not just any piece will do any more. We want more firepower; we want it to be “tactical”; and we want to ash it. (Thanks to the open carry law that went into effect on January 1, you can now wear your gun, as the Townes Van Zandt lyric goes, outside your pants for all the honest world to feel.)

Former land commissioner and author of Texas’ concealed carry law Jerry Patterson captured the current mood nicely: “I used to carry a .380. Now I carry a 9 millimeter,” he said. “I’m just like every other idiot. I don’t think my .380 is big enough.” Big enough for what? Did I somehow miss the impending ISIS invasion or the stampeding of angry water buffalo down I-35?

At some level, I understand the impulse to take up arms. One Halloween night, some years ago, a man came into the bedroom where my girlfriend and I were sleeping. He fled as soon as she began screaming. We never got a good look at him, though the police were able to pull fingerprints and arrest the intruder, a homeless man with a criminal record. It was a terrifying experience — the kind that makes you think long and hard about how to protect yourself.

Rather, it’s an abdication of your responsibility.  He thinks he can outwit everyone.  Well, let’s try this one on.  Lewisville dam breaks and buries Dallas, Texas under a wall of water 50 feet deep.  The writer, Forrest Wilder, survives.  Mr. Wilder now has to fend for himself when everyone is starving.  What does Forrest do?

We’re waiting, Forest.  Tell us.  Tell us how you comically enthrall those hordes of hungry peasants who would kill for their next morsel of edible stuff – since you’re so much smarter than the peasants.  Or you’ll love them to death.  Or something.  Tell us, Forrest.

Now beyond the silly know-nothing content of the article (the .38 Special is 0.357 inches, or 9.1 mm in diameter, while the 9mm is .355 inches, or 9.01 mm in diameter), and besides the laughable moralistic preening by someone who has likely never fended for himself in his life (but who probably has soft pajamas and drinks lattes), what do you notice about this commentary?

I’ll mention one thing, and readers can fill in the other details in comments.  It used to be that guns caused violence.  We’ve heard it so much that we’re virtually numb too it, and while we could ruin that argument with facts and statistics, we don’t even bother any more.

Now Forrest tries to turn the table with statistics.  Despite the virtually ubiquitous presence of guns in America, violence is decreasing.  (1) You aren’t supposed to have guns because they cause violence.  Opps.  Wrong argument.  (2) Everyone has guns and violence is still decreasing.  In fact, violence is decreasing to the point that’s it’s unnecessary to have guns any more.

You’ll be the subject of ridicule whether violence is increasing or decreasing.  It’s your liberty they hate.  Don’t ever relinquish it.

KSN.com:

TOPEKA, Kan. (KSNW/AP) – State agencies, cities and counties in Kansas will not be allowed to bar workers from carrying concealed guns while performing duties outside their offices, starting in July.

Republican Gov. Sam Brownback signed a gun-rights bill this week that includes the provision affecting government workers. Agencies still could limit the carrying of concealed weapons in public buildings.

The measure also creates an exception to a state law requiring students to be expelled if they bring weapons to public schools so that school groups can have organized activities involving air guns, such as BB rifles.

So, how is the new law being received in Sedgwick County?

“There have been employees who have requested an opportunity to defend themselves,” said Sedgwick County Commission Chairman Jim Howell.  “On July 1st our policies will be reflected of this new law.”

Meanwhile, Wichita City Council Member James Clendenin says policies at city hall will change.

“On July 1st our policies will be reflected of this new law,” said Clendenin.  “Our city attorney’s are going over the law now that it’s signed and their going through it point by point and looking at what ordinance changes need to be made.  I think our community is much safer as a result of these laws that allow this to happen.”

But County Commissioner Howell says with the increased responsibility comes increased risk.

“Should they have a need to use that firearm, or should they have an accident or incident with that firearm, whatever happens is going to fall on the shoulders of that person,” Howell said.

The Kansas State Rifle Association said the new law recognizes workers’ rights to defend themselves and allows schools to instruct students in handling firearms safely.

Well, not exactly.  The law only applies to government workers.  I get it.  The Governor can’t infringe on private property rights.  But I have a dream.  I have a dream that one day we won’t be judged by the presence of weapons on our person, but by the God-given right to bear arms in self defense.

Twitchy:

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Not everyone in politics has to be a worm.  Perhaps Governor Abbot can help lead the Southern states in secession?

David Codrea:

That’s inexcusable, but certainly revealing of the mindset ruling those locales. It figures Opposite Day “progressives” who exploit the term “inclusive” would put up barriers against the most vulnerable of their constituents.  Gun-grabbers would evidently rather see a disabled person physically abused and even beaten to death than “allowed” to possess an effective means of self-defense.

God tests men in various and sundry ways.  Our commitment to the elderly is one such test, and I’ve upbraided little turd Hamilton Nolan before over his mockery of the elderly and the right to self defense.  The disabled and infirmed are one other such test.  It’s not over for these states.  Those responsible will answer to God one day.

Matthew Vanderboegh gives us a primer on defensive operations in urban areas.

Drunk man discharges rifle to see if it will work.  That’s not a good enough reason, not when you’re drunk.

They’re crossing forty at a time.

NRO:

WBUR:

Here’s a conversation I was in on recently between a pediatric intern and the parents of a healthy, 1-day-old baby. It occurred in the Yale-New Haven Hospital well baby nursery.

“Your daughter’s physical exam is perfect,” the intern said. “She’s eating well, peeing and pooping well. I want to talk to you a little about how to help you keep her safe and healthy.”

Next came a standard discussion about the baby’s sleeping position and whether she’s got a car seat. Then, the next question:

“Do you have any guns in the home?”

Suddenly, the genial tone changed.

“I don’t think you should ask that question,” said the child’s father.

“Should I take that as a ‘yes’?” the intern pressed.

“I just don’t think you should ask.”

“Sir, we ask because we want to make sure that your baby is as safe as she can be, making sure you keep any guns locked up and away from her.”

“It’s none of your business.”

What started out as a lovely interaction between two new parents and the pediatric intern, with me observing, suddenly turned into the reprimands of an angry father. No matter how the pediatric resident and I tried to explain that we were asking for the safety of his newborn daughter, he persisted in telling us it was none of our business and not relevant for the child’s health. The mother sat silent in her hospital bed.

This really shouldn’t be controversial.

Since 1992, the American Academy of Pediatrics has encouraged primary care providers to discuss firearm safety with families. This reflects the influential group’s acknowledgment that keeping a gun locked and unloaded dramatically reduces the risk of firearms accidents, and the belief that brief counseling by physicians promotes safer storage of guns in homes with children.

Still, sadly, some controversy remains.

[ … ]

This means if you’re a Florida pediatrician, no asking about guns in the home or documenting them in the chart of a baby or young child …

This commentary was written by Marjorie S. Rosenthal, assistant director of the Yale Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program and associate research scientist in the Department of Pediatrics at the Yale University School of Medicine.

You see Marjorie, the fallen nature of mankind is wicked.  That means that totalitarians of all stripes want to exercise control over others.  The desire to exercise control over other people is often sinful.  Every genocide in modern history was preceded by gun confiscations.  As you know, the government has exceptions to medical privacy laws, and with the stroke of a pen (followed on by thousands of pages of federal register notice that explains how the executive intends to carry out his nefarious plans), those laws can be expanded.  The last little bit … “or documenting them in the chart of a baby or young child,” is a big part of the problem.

We know that you would willingly turn in records of gun owners to the government, enabling confiscatory measures and schemes.  Furthermore, we really don’t want your counsel on how we handle our guns.   We would prefer that you spend your time and focus on medicine.  For instance, the human error rate in medicine is still much higher than the commercial nuclear power industry, commercial airlines and pharmaceutical industries (all of which practice and focus on human error reduction tools and techniques).  We would prefer that you study disease, diagnosis, pathologies, biology and pharmacology as opposed to trying to understand the mechanics of machinery or fix the error rate for anyone else.  Tend to your own house and get it in order.  It’s a mess.

So to summarize, the gentleman you cited in the initial example was kind to you, kinder that I will be.  As for whether this has to be controversial, you’re right.  It certainly doesn’t have to be.  Mind your own damn business.  Now I have a few questions for you, beginning with this one.  What is your favorite position for sex?

Fred:

My nephew is in tech school (navy) and I told him before he went in to seek a deep understanding of illegal orders and to make sure they trained him on it. I also told him that if he took his training and turned it on his fellow citizens I would hunt and kill him, this child that I love and helped to raise up. He understood that this is no small matter.

And thus it will necessarily be like it was in the days of the war of independence, with family turning against family over the king.  Dark days may lie ahead.